On November 11, Ezra wrote an article accusing the Essex Board of Education in Ontario of exempting Muslims from participating in Remembrance Day and questioned the patriotism of Muslim Canadians. He suggested people who he outraged sign a petition that condemned the board's decision on a website his article linked to (Canada: Love It Or Leave) and, while there, to maybe purchase a charming t-shirt.
The problem with all of this is that
none of it was true. Yes, there was a memo that went out from the school board which suggested alternative Remembrance Day commemorations, but the memo was directed at those schools where parents might have safety concerns as it had only been a couple of weeks since the murder of an honor guard at the Canadian War Memorial.
The story was debunked as the product mainly of Levant's fevered, Islamaphobic, imagination, though he did do quite a good job of appealing to his xenophobic base of support.
One of those xenophobes though likely hats him as much as any Muslim though:
Yep, Paulie:
Really, it's not as if we should be surprised. Paulie might be an anti-Semite in addition to a racist, but he is also an opportunist and if there's any opening for him to inject his particular brand of Nativism and bigotry into the public sphere, he'll be in like Flynn.
Now, after a lot (and we mean a hell of a lot) of criticism, Levant backed down and even.... begrudgingly,...
admitted he was wrong in the passive-aggressive way we have come to know and love from him. He also changed the website to omit mention of Muslims, though he still takes a crack at the school board:
He also noted that no parent in the entire Essex County School Board area had asked for an exemption for their child. In short, everyone participated.
So, the story ended in a bit of a whimper.
Except if you're Paulie Fromm and you want to continue to flog a dead horse:
Paulie posted the following video Sunday, a full 5 days after the original story Levant published was thoroughly discredited: